


The good girl

by Alex_E



Category: Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/M, Love Triangles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 07:59:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15747564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex_E/pseuds/Alex_E
Summary: She realized that she is very, very bad at cheating.....Mariah pov





	The good girl

**Author's Note:**

> Another one written in class.  
> Enjoy.

Mariah Stokes-Dillard always prided herself on the fact that she never cheated in school. She was a good girl. Sure, maybe the other kids called her a dork or a nerd. Maybe they called her a teacher's pet.  
Cornell was always teasing her as well, telling her to ‘loosen up’. That she was way too serious.  
Maybe she was all of those things, but the truth remained that she learned it all. And now all those kids who teased her were working at sanitation or flipping burgers at McDonald's, and she was a well known and respected politician.

But now that she looks back on it, she wonders if cheating in school would really have been such a bad idea. Maybe it would have been good practice.

Because she's realized that she is very, very bad at cheating.

She not only chose to have sex with someone who wasn't her partner. No, she decided to have sex with his best friend. In their shared bed, no less. When she knew he would eventually be coming home.

Good cheaters would have easily seen that it wasn't the best plan in the world. Good cheaters would be discreet – hotel rooms and strangers and secret codes. But no, she had to go and get caught in a way that could easily have been avoided.

She's pretty sure Hernan never cheated in school. He was smart and quiet and followed the rules. She doesn't know how he got caught up with the streets. It was something that happens too often in Harlem, she was trying to change that.

If Hernan had cheated, he probably wouldn't have been so stupid as to do it in their own home.  
That was just so purely amateur and that made  
her angry. Hernan was probably the kid in class who told on other kids for cheating. He was that kind of guy. A self-righteous Catholic. He didn't know how to cheat.

Darius, on the other hand, was probably the one copying off of Hernan behind his back during math. Darius knew how to play the game. Darius cheated on exams, cheated in basketball, cheated on boyfriends and girlfriends alike. She was pretty sure he'd never gotten caught.

Well, at least not until she found him with that damned stripper. It had thrown her off – she expected him to sleep around. He was Darius, after all. But she hadn't expected him to do it in their bed. (Funny how she'd come to think of it as theirs). It had been a slap in the face – she wasn't worth it anymore. He didn't even bother to hide it. The cycle was so ironic that it left her with a bitter taste in her mouth.

When she'd yelled that he didn't care enough to be careful about cheating, he'd replied in a simple sentence.

“You're still wearing his necklace.”

So she spent her evenings alone at Harlem's Paradise. Keeping up the pretence that everyting is fine.  
Because she cheated on Hernan and then Darius cheated on her and now she realizes that she should have seen the next part coming;

Everybody cheats on the class nerd, after all.

She's pretty sure Misty was the kind of girl who never went to class. She was probably the one who showed up to ace the test and then played basketball on the court for the rest of the day. Misty probably didn't even bother to cheat. Maybe she's never had the opportunity, she is a career woman after all– she doesn't have a husband or a boyfriend, unless Misty counts Hernan as a boyfriend (but Mariah doesn't want to think about that).

Mariah wonders if she should take after Misty and just not give a fuck. Because her and Hernan and Darius are just so bad at cheating. They can't seem to get it right.

If she steps back and looks at the triangle (no, Misty makes it a square) she sees that she's the one who started the domino effect.

She silently curses Mama Mabel, her private school, all the things that she can blame her non-cheating past on. Maybe she had too many years of being cultivated to perfection that her subconscious just had to screw it up.

Because right now, she's not sure who's cheating on whom.

She lives with Darius, and Hernan lives with Misty.

Which is fine. It's not a problem. It's really not.

The problem is the fact that right now, she's in the supply closet. Pressed against the wall. Her skirt is hiked up over her hips and his hands are everywhere and she has to bite Hernan on the shoulder to keep from moaning out loud.

She can't remember when it started – sometime after they separated, after she gave in to Darius and let him move in with her, after Hernan bought an apartment for himself and she found out he was living there with the detective. She tries not to think about it at all, really, because when she does all it gives her is a headache.

(And now she can't think anything except oh and Hernan and I need it now).

Afterwards he continues to hold her up against the wall, resting his forehead against hers.

"This is wrong," she says, usually they don't talk after and she is so sick of the silence.

He smiles slightly – sadly – at her. "Are you sure? We were together for so long. I think there has to be some kind of loophole, don't you agree?"

She decides that she is all for the loophole, because she's really bad at cheating and there's probably some rules she doesn't know about. "Okay."

"You just – we just – fit so well, mamacita" he whispers.

She thinks that it's really not fair of him to compare Misty to her – she had so much more practice, after all. Misty's known him for a few months, while she has had years to perfect exactly how to make him beg and plead for more. "Okay," she repeats, and gently pushes him away so she can pull down her skirt.

She knows that Darius is out hustling with Sugar as his protection. She always wonders if Hernan sets it up that way so that they can be by themselves for a while. Sometimes there is so much passion and things that are unfulfilled between them. He's biting and kissing her lips so savagely that she's sure one day Darius will notice the bruises.

She runs a hand through her hair as Hernan buttons his shirt. He leans over to press a soft kiss on her cheek and it feels like it's burning her skin.

It's Hernan, and she's Mariah, and she wonders if she never cheated in the first place if they would have been just fine.

He leaves the supply closet and she waits a few moments before going out as well. It's daytime it's Harlem's Paradise and this is the hallway that's always empty, but they need to be careful. (She's learned something after all).

But it's not empty.

It's Sugar, and it's Darius and it's Alex, and it's Hernan staring at the floor. She notices that he forgot to tuck in his shirt.

Sugar actually looks at them like a parent who is sick of dealing with stupid horny teenagers. Alex looks like he wants to melt into the floor and die. Darius’s face is shocked as he looks from his former best friend to his other half. She feels nothing and wonders if she should.

"This is your revenge, isn't it?" Darius asks Hernan.

Now they're all looking at Mariah .

She shrugs.

"I never cheated in school," she says, and it's the truth.


End file.
